Charlie McGill Scholarship winner defies the odds and sets records
Brandon Meneses gives a simple explanation when asked about what happened to him at Christmastime of his freshman year in Elmwood Park.
“I basically just tell people that I had an AVM,” Meneses said. “And then I explain to them that AVM is just a knot of veins. And for me, it just happened to be in my brain, where it ruptured caused massive bleeding.”
In technical terms, AVM stands for arteriovenous malformation – which, for a then-14-year-old soccer player, led to six hours of surgery, 40 days of hospital stays and months of recovery.
Meneses, now 18, graduated from Elmwood Park Memorial High School last Friday as the boys track and field program record-holder in the 3,200 meter run.
He will head to Ramapo College in Mahwah as the male recipient of the 2023 Charlie McGill Scholarship Award. He will be honored Wednesday night at the North Jersey High School Sports Awards show at Passaic Tech.
Elmwood Park track coach Edmund Garrison, who nominated Meneses for the award, recalled the events of Dec. 23, 2019.
“Brandon was in the back of an ambulance, unresponsive and being rushed to Hackensack University Medical Center,” Garrison said. “After a six-hour craniotomy surgery, he remained sedated through Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
“The surgeon’s prognosis included vision loss, paralysis of his right side, memory loss, speech impairment, physical impairments and loss of cognitive skills.”
‘Christmas miracle’
Although Meneses’ long-term memory remained relatively unaffected, he had trouble recalling events in the short term.
“Before, I used to have a photographic memory,” Meneses said. “After I had woken up [from sedation], I could not remember the conversation that I just had with you five minutes ago.”
His mother, Lucy Quezada, later told Brandon that he would repeatedly ask the same questions because he could not remember her responses. After 20 days in Hackensack, he was transferred to a local children’s hospital for inpatient therapy.
“Originally, the inpatient therapists were estimating that I would have to spend anywhere between about three to six months in there,” Meneses said. “But I was able to have a really speedy recovery, and I actually only stayed there about a month.”
Since his parents are separated, Brandon had two homecomings: One to his father Jose’s in Elmwood Park and one to Lucy’s in Haledon.
“The PICU nurses at Hackensack named him ‘The Christmas Miracle’,” Garrison said.
A shift in focus
In the autumn of 2019, soccer was the main extracurricular event in Meneses’ life. He played club and high school soccer at the same time, took private lessons and could tell you all you needed to know about his favorite professional player, Cristiano Ronaldo.
The 5-foot-5 forward was cleared to return to athletic activities in July 2021. He noted, however, that soccer “didn’t really feel the same to me” as he approached his junior season.
“He realized that soccer requires a constant demand for cognitive skills and executive function,” Garrison said, “which were the areas that were affected as a result of his brain hemorrhage.”
Schoolwork alone consumed much of his time. Due to his brain’s reduced processing ability, studying for tests required a minimum of two days, his coach noted.
“He has had to implement different learning and studying strategies,” Garrison said. “He accepted what he could not change and, to this day, still continues to learn new ways to improve his memory.”
Meneses also has learned to compensate for diminished peripheral vision, something that became a drawback for anticipating passes to/from soccer teammates – but not necessarily so with straight-line running.
“Ever since I was little, I loved running,” said Meneses, who still can recall taking laps around the Manchester Regional track near Lucy’s house. “So, I decided to try a new sport, which was track and field. And I honestly wish I had tried it from my freshman year.”
Meneses was drawn to distance running, so much so that he not only joined the track team but also switched from soccer to cross-country for the fall of his senior year. His 5K best was 20:30, which placed him among the top 50 at the Bergen County Group C meet.
Yet a different number grabbed his focus, and cross-country wound up being a training ground for his true ambition.
Crowning achievement
In the spring of his junior year, Meneses ran the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 meters for the Crusaders.
“I remember Coach Garrison had notified me that after my last [3,200] race, I was six or seven seconds off from reaching the school record, which was 11:22,” he said. “And that became my goal, to beat it my senior year.”
One thing that helped was Elmwood Park moving from the NJIC Colonial – the largest-school division in the small-school conference – to the new American Division with opponents that had more similar enrollments.
“Before, I was always chasing someone; I never was in first,” Meneses said. “This was the first season that I was actually in first, and people were chasing me for once. So, that’s why I just I kept working.”
His best finish resulted in a bronze medal in the 1,600 and silver in the 3,200, both at the NJIC American championships. Entering the North 2, Group 2 sectional at the end of the season, however, his 3,200-meter time was still in the 11:20s.
“When I finally went to states this year – it was my second year of going [to the state-sectional meet] – I was fortunate enough, and had worked hard enough, that I was able to beat the school record with 11 minutes and 15 seconds,” Meneses said proudly.
That took place June 3. Five days later, he got the surprise of being named Prince of the Elmwood Park Senior Prom, and held court with the king, queen and princess. The head that still bears surgical scars received an actual crown.
A Roadrunner, literally
The next proving ground will be at Ramapo, where Meneses plans to study business. He is interested in competing in both cross-country and track and has met with Roadrunners coach Justina Cassavell about joining the teams.
“She expects her runners to run anywhere between 50 to 70 miles a week,” he said, “so she told me, ‘If you want, you can put that in the paperwork and everything. But I won’t have you run with the school until maybe the spring… or, I feel like you’re ready, maybe the winter’.”
So, once again, Meneses is out to defy the odds.
“Just recently, I’ve been going on runs in the mornings,” he said. “Right now, the most I’ve run so far was 7.38 miles. I’m trying to reach about 10 miles a day, and if I run every single day, that’d be about 70 miles a week.
“I’m trying to get up to that pace,” Meneses said, “so that way, when I go to practice, maybe I can change the coach’s mind.”
